“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush

Friday, July 18, 2014

Target practice in Gaza by the noble IDF

Israel says it takes pains to avoid civilian casualties and targets only the militants and their weapons"As I’ve documented extensively, the extent of innocent casualties during “Pillar of Defense” was concealed well from the eyes of the Israeli public. It is doubtful whether the average Israeli can even guess the numbers. The IDF published false data with little publicity – an inevitable conclusion considering its reluctance to corroborate them by a list of names. Furthermore, the disinformation was also circulated within the army’s ranks, including the air force website, which did not mention in a single word the Palestinian victims of “surgical precision.” This mendacious propaganda plays a distinct operational role: preparing the ground and the hearts for the war crimes of the next operation. Under this guise of ignorance, pilots can embark with no qualms on bombing missions over the densely populated neighborhoods of Gaza and hang on to the illusion that they are only hitting arch-terrorists. Mendacious propaganda can also serve as a protective edge.”MORE HERE

132 comments:

less than 2% of all Israeli rockets hit civilians, but that won't stop you from crying wolf...

hamas started the war, continues to fire rockets aimed at civilians, regardless of whether israel invested in bomb shelters or missile defense,

Hamas is losing and everyone knows it.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed so far in the current round of fighting while the number of dead Israelis amounts to a grand total of one.

That’s almost certainly the reason Hamas rejected the Egypt-proposed cease-fire agreement. So far it has accomplished practically nothing. A small band of serial killers on the West Bank managed to murder more Israelis a couple of weeks ago than Hamas can manage with its entire missile arsenal now.

It’s pathetic, really, and must be extraordinarily humiliating.

The Middle Eastern habit of declaring victory after getting your ass kicked has a long pedigree. Egypt did it after losing the 1973 Yom Kippur War. North Korea built a hysterical propaganda museum in Cairo commemorating that make-believe victory, but at least that particular fantasy is based on something. The Egyptian army did well against Israel for the first couple of days even though it lost in the end.

Hezbollah declared victory in the 2006 war despite the fact that entire swaths of its infrastructure were obliterated, but Hezbollah did inflict some serious damage and triggered a refugee crisis. Hamas couldn’t possibly base a victory boast on anything now.

The Israelis are seriously considering a ground invasion since Hamas won’t stop firing, but they’ve already proved to the population of Gaza that Hamas, even with its all its longer-range missiles, is capable of inflicting no more damage on the Zionist Entity than a lone killer armed with only a steak knife.

The US media is sotted with the “Truth” from the Israeli side. Every blog has Israeli minders staffed 24/7/365 at DEFCON 4 to paper the house with pro-Israeli propaganda. I am telling a small missing part of the story that is quashed by Israel Inc.

You also conveniently forget that I control the keys to this blog and have given great latitude to the Israeli firsters and supporters during this entire episode. If you prefer an echo chamber, you have one. use it.

No, the ones lacking in luxury are all those suffering defenseless people than are not your kin. They are from the other side and in your world worthless, the worthless that are not Jews. You are not pretty, bulley. Enjoy your feast.

From De Lowe in Israel, we learn of this amazing run of bad luck. Pictures show that the same family that was killed in Syria by Assad, was also killed by IDF bombing Gaza few days ago, according to Arab media.

An Israeli leadership truly interested in a peace agreement would not have driven its partner to the point of lacking any leadership authority among his people. But that is exactly the point. Israel is not really interested in peace or in a partner who can bring about peace.

In January 2011 the winds of the Arab Spring blew through Gaza and the West Bank, and the four-year rift between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas came to an end. Reconciliation talks took three months, and were boosted by mass demonstrations of Palestinians in Gaza and Ramallah in favor of a unity government. Abu Mazen declared his willingness to travel to Gaza and sign an agreement.

In other words, Bibi’s nightmare came true.

The day after Abu Mazen’s declaration, the IDF killed two Hamas activists in Gaza, in an action authorized by the highest levels – the minister of defense and the IDF chief of staff. The killing was portrayed as a response to the launching of a single Qassam rocket, which hit no one, but some, like Yedioth’s Alex Fishman, understood that this had been a “premeditated escalation” by Israel. The following day, March 17, Netanyahu came “full circle”, clarifying to those who had not yet understood: Palestinian unity is a red line, as far as Israel is concerned.

Israel’s array of diplomatic threats was retrieved from storage: economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, an end to security cooperation. Nothing was said about the escalation in the South being the immediate aftermath of that policy. The security pretext – “restore calm to the South” ­– was brittle and unconvincing. Astute observers noted that at the beginning of that month Israel had substantially decreased the flow of goods into Gaza – a move that precedes an Israeli strike more often than it is a response to a Palestinian strike.

The killing of Hamas activists was the first shot in yet another seasonal round of violence between Israel and Gaza. The “premeditated escalation” claimed the lives of innocent people – four members of the el-Hilu family in the Saja’ia neighborhood. A detailed day-by-day analysis of that round of escalation appeared on this blog, showing that there were various reasons behind the Israeli escalation, but none of them were the protection of the lives and wellbeing of the residents of Israel. This is what I wrote then:

What does one do? One escalates. That’s the explanation for what we have seen throughout the past two weeks. Why is an escalation good? Because an escalation, and the stoking of flames on both sides of the border, always plays into the hands of extremists. The call for revenge trumps the call for reconciliation, and the voice of separation overrides the voice of unity. In short, when Grad rockets and choppers roar, reason moves to one’s balls. Another week or two of rockets and choppers and mortars, and the sane, alternative agenda will undergo the burial of a donkey. Another few casualties on both sides, and eyes will be bloodshot once more, and hateful chants will fill the air, and at night only the silent sobs of bereaved mothers will be heard. This is how Israel hopes to disrupt and roll back the civilian, non-violent dynamic, which has already taken deep roots in the West Bank. This is how Israel hopes to derail the “dangerous” train of Palestinian unity, which may define an entirely new set of rules in the region. Let there be no doubt: Islamic Jihad, as well as some extremist factions of Hamas, share this goal. They too would like to torpedo any intra-national compromise with Fatah, on the one hand, and will not let go of their raison d’être – the armed, violent and terrorist struggle – in exchange for a popular struggle, on the other hand. Therefore, the confrontation, as always, is between those seeking peace on both sides and the warmongers. Between those who love life, and those who love death. Will Israelis come to realize that their extremists are not just a bunch of hilltop youths in Samaria, but those who were elected to lead – Netanyahu, Barak, Livni and Mufaz? Will Israelis save themselves from their leaders, or will they, for the second time in the past few years, put their fate in the hands of the aforementioned politicians, shut themselves in a bubble and passively stare at their disaster and at the disaster being inflicted in their name?

The historical irony – which keeps being forgotten here – was that all these flames and casualties were in vain. In May 2011, Fatah and Hamas signed a historic reconciliation agreement, and there was nothing Israel could do about it, to the embarrassment of a few despondent Israeli commentators. The Israeli illusion of landing a few hundred or thousand missiles on the Arabs in order to successfully shape their internal politics was shattered once more against the cliffs of reality.

The cliff of reality is the only solid cliff

[Translation note: the Hebrew name of the current operation is “Solid Cliff”]

Back to the present. Palestinian reconciliation has not made the transition from paper to implementation. Fatah and Hamas have remained split and primarily committed to contrasting interests: The Palestinian Authority kept arresting Hamas activists in the West Bank to continue receiving donor support and maintain its survival. And Hamas kept resisting the Israeli siege of Gaza. Six weeks ago, on April 23, the gaps were bridged and the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation agreement was signed for a second time.

As usual, all those who are threatened by Palestinian unity were alarmed. The entire Israeli leadership denounced the unity government, and the Americans were also “disappointed.” Netanyahu declared: “We regard this move as a return to the well-known Palestinian pattern: whenever they have to make a decision, they run away.”

And here one cannot but interject. We too have witnessed the well-known Israeli pattern: every time they have to make a decision, they bomb. No more than a few minutes after the agreement was ceremoniously signed, an Israeli aircraft fired two missiles at a motorcycle in Beit Lahiya. The “target” was not hit. In its stead, seven passers-by were injured. But the message was delivered: whoever dares to speak of unity in this neighborhood will get it. Throughout the month of June, the flames rose gradually higher and higher on both sides, and the IDF demonstrated once more the “surgical” precision of targeted assassinations by killing a seven-year-old in the Sudaniyeh neighborhood of Gaza.

The kidnapping and murder of three Israeli youths in Gush Etzion in June 2014 was a boon to the prime minister. This is a harsh statement, but it can be corroborated by what Netanyahu said just two days after the incident, before there was any lead for the resolution of the case: “The incident demonstrates what we have been saying throughout long months: the alliance with Hamas brings about very bad consequences, which run contrary to the advancement of peace between us and the Palestinians.” This statement was unfounded. Among the Palestinian public, it was obvious to all that the kidnapping was in fact a test of the alliance and an act that subverted it. As one can recall, even Abu Mazen’s unequivocal condemnation, delivered to the entire Muslim world, a condemnation that furthermore crumbled the shaky unity with Hamas, was not good enough for the Israeli government. Once more, Netanyahu’s office made clear in its response that there was only one thing on its mind – rockets or no rockets, kidnapping or murder, condemnation or whatever: “Cancel the agreement with Hamas.”

And then, at the beginning of this month, the flow of goods into Gaza was reduced. And since July 7, we are officially in yet another “operation to restore calm to the South.”

Does that ring a bell? The dynamic of July 2014 is astonishingly similar to that of March 2011. In both cases, political developments in the Palestinian arena generate an Israeli military response. In both cases, Fatah-Hamas unity is perceived as a strategic threat, which justifies a “pre-emptive strike.” The justification is total, to the point of retroactively justifying “premeditated escalation” to achieve the desirable level of fire. In both cases, the lives and wellbeing of residents on both sides of the border are of no interest to the leadership. They are nothing more than a trader’s currency on an agenda that is strategic, not defensive.

And Palestinian unity will survive both cases. This unity is inevitable, just like the unity between Jewish Israelis in the Negev and in the central area is inevitable. In both cases, we are talking about one nation. Only the casualties claimed in vain, among both peoples, are preventable.

A few words about the political folly: what is the reason that the Israeli policy is so totally enslaved to its anxiety over Palestinian unity? The answer is not complicated. It can be summed up in the single sentence: We should ensure there is no partner. We should ensure there is no partner, for if a Palestinian partner exists, there is someone with whom we can negotiate a peace agreement, which requires the most dreadful thing of all: giving up land and control. Therefore, for many years, Israel has taken care to crush any potential partner for negotiations, including the one who only yesterday was sitting at the negotiation table and scheming with it against its “extremist” compatriots.

Thus, Israel does not settle for a persistent fight against Palestinian unity, it also strives to weaken its so-called partner vis-a-vis the Hamas zealots ­– Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority. Years of servile obedience have turned Abu Mazen into a caricature in the eyes of his own people. An Israeli leadership truly interested in a peace agreement would not have driven its partner to the point of lacking any leadership authority among his people. But that is exactly the point. Israel is not really interested in peace or in a partner who can bring about peace.

REPEAT Thus, Israel does not settle for a persistent fight against Palestinian unity, it also strives to weaken its so-called partner vis-a-vis the Hamas zealots ­– Abu Mazen and the Palestinian Authority. Years of servile obedience have turned Abu Mazen into a caricature in the eyes of his own people. An Israeli leadership truly interested in a peace agreement would not have driven its partner to the point of lacking any leadership authority among his people. But that is exactly the point. Israel is not really interested in peace or in a partner who can bring about peace.

This policy has borne fruit. First we crushed the Palestinian Authority, which brought Hamas to power in Gaza. The persistent fight against Hamas is also beginning to bear fruit: the influence of extremist Islamist groups in Gaza is on the rise, groups with whom one cannot negotiate anything. And Netanyahu? He is already rubbing his hands, eagerly awaiting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

One must recall all this when tales are being peddled about the goal of the current operation being “the restoration of security to the citizens of Israel.” This bullshit has been circulated here for years, as if it weren’t fake, used merchandise. There is no military deterrence in the South, and there will be no such thing. Perhaps you would listen to some generals who have sobered up way too late, if you don’t want to listen to me, or to a cynical military commentator who has already seen a thing or two in his lifetime.

And if I were to get a call-up for reserve duty, I would refuse. I would do so because they are lying to us (again), but primarily because of the bodies of children and women that are already beginning to pile up in Gaza under the IDF’s war machine.

In the following diagram, posted on Facebook, Shlomit Havron lists Israeli operations in Gaza under the headline, “Let’s hit Hamas hard and prevent them altogether from launching rockets! It worked great the last time!…Eh, Wait…”

What this diagram doesn’t show is that from one operation to another, the range of Hamas rockets has increased. During “Cast Lead”, rockets hit areas within a radius of 40 km from the border. During “Pillar of Defense”, Grad rockets hit Tel Aviv, and during “Protective Edge”, rockets have hit the Haifa area. That’s what Israel’s “military deterrence” vis-a-vis Hamas looks like.

***

On this eighth day of “Protective Edge”, at least 176 dead Palestinians have been reported. The number of uninvolved civilians among them is not precisely known. The true figures are revealed only when the dust settles (for current updates, click here). However, one can already conduct a crude comparison with operation “Pillar of Defense” in November 2012. Back then, according to a meticulous report by B’Tselem, 17 people were killed on the first two days of the operation, eight of whom were uninvolved civilians. Therefore, the number of people killed by Israel during the first two days was twice that of November 2012.

The most important finding of that report pointed out that a turning point occurred after the fourth day of the operation. While the IDF had killed “only” 17 uninvolved civilians during the first four days of “Pillar of Defense”, in the last four days it killed 70 uninvolved civilians. In fact, during the second half of “Pillar or Defense”, the IDF killed two innocent civilians for every combatant.

The four-day scope, therefore, seems to represent the moral life span of operations in Gaza. Following this in the short term, Hamas combatants fade into the population sufficiently, in a way that steers the rest of the operation towards distinct war crimes, with or without “surgical” weapons.

As I’ve documented extensively, the extent of innocent casualties during “Pillar of Defense” was concealed well from the eyes of the Israeli public. It is doubtful whether the average Israeli can even guess the numbers. The IDF published false data with little publicity – an inevitable conclusion considering its reluctance to corroborate them by a list of names. Furthermore, the disinformation was also circulated within the army’s ranks, including the air force website, which did not mention in a single word the Palestinian victims of “surgical precision.” This mendacious propaganda plays a distinct operational role: preparing the ground and the hearts for the war crimes of the next operation. Under this guise of ignorance, pilots can embark with no qualms on bombing missions over the densely populated neighborhoods of Gaza and hang on to the illusion that they are only hitting arch-terrorists. Mendacious propaganda can also serve as a protective edge.

Well, surely you didn’t think this operation came as a surprise to anyone, or did you? The IDF had already begun work on it the moment “Pillar of Defense” concluded in November 2012. Rest assured that somewhere in the IDF headquarters, a few brilliant minds in the operations section are already toiling, drawing conclusions from the failures of “Protective Edge”, building a new target bank, improving the technologies and outlining the next operation in Gaza – the one that would finally, really “bring Hamas to its knees.”

This presentation of the state of things is surely quite infuriating, since it totally ignores the role played by Hamas in stoking the flames of confrontation. But I am not ignoring the matter. In fact, I am writing all this in between one rocket alert and another, so it’s hard for me to ignore the rockets launched by Hamas. But the fact of the matter is that I am an Israeli citizen and those who are accountable to me are the Israeli politicians who have failed to ensure my security, not the Hamas leadership. The Israeli media keeps commenting to no end on the motives driving the other side, but it is almost pathologically blind when it comes to the motives on our side. On this issue, it can all be summed up in slogans like “calm in the South”, and “restoring deterrence.” Israeli commentators have no problem cutting through the screen of Hamas propaganda, (rightly) observing that the grave salary crisis in Gaza is one of the indirect reasons for Hamas’ attempt to heat up the border. Any arrangement to be established after the current confrontation, any written or unwritten understanding, will give Hamas more breath. That’s all true, but the Israeli commentators are stuck in the other side’s book-keeping, instead of asking themselves honestly that if that is the case, and if my leaders also know that this operation will only strengthen Hamas (and its militant factions in particular) – why are they playing into its hands?

They are obviously not playing into its hands. They are playing with it, and the ball is the inhabitants of Israel and Gaza. This is men’s playtime.

One cannot conclude without responding, at the end of one’s rope, to the recurring complaint: so what should we do? Should we sit idly by when they are launching rockets at us?

No, we should do the obvious to prevent the rockets. We will recognize Hamas as the elected government of Gaza and cast aside all hysterical shrieks about the “Hamas Charter” and “recognizing a Jewish state.” We will lift the siege on Gaza (yes, there is a siege, and it is tightened when we feel like it). We will strengthen and cooperate with Palestinian unity and let the Palestinian people themselves shape their government. That would be a pretty good start, certainly not one that has proven to be an abysmal failure, as the eight previous “Let’s crush Hamas” rounds have been.

REPEAT: One cannot conclude without responding, at the end of one’s rope, to the recurring complaint: so what should we do? Should we sit idly by when they are launching rockets at us?

No, we should do the obvious to prevent the rockets. We will recognize Hamas as the elected government of Gaza and cast aside all hysterical shrieks about the “Hamas Charter” and “recognizing a Jewish state.” We will lift the siege on Gaza (yes, there is a siege, and it is tightened when we feel like it). We will strengthen and cooperate with Palestinian unity and let the Palestinian people themselves shape their government. That would be a pretty good start, certainly not one that has proven to be an abysmal failure, as the eight previous “Let’s crush Hamas” rounds have been.

What is "Occupation"Fri Jul 18, 09:12:00 PM EDTI noticed Deuce, you NEVER have called for Hamas to stop firing rockets at israeli civilians.

hmmm...

It is normal human behavior to strike back against your tormentor and the enemy that denies basic human dignity and freedom. The right of revolution may be traced back to Magna Carta. I realize your books on repression, oppression and revenge have a greater lineage.

deuce: It is normal human behavior to strike back against your tormentor and the enemy that denies basic human dignity and freedom. The right of revolution may be traced back to Magna Carta. I realize your books on repression, oppression and revenge have a greater lineage

That's your right, but with all due respect (none) don't get your panties in a wad if we don't allow your genocidal jihadists to slit our throats without a fight... And if your savages, oh I mean friends, want to use babies as human shields? That's their choice and their right to behave like the savages they are.

Very dramatic, but stupid, none the less. I think I have been around enough and travelled enough to know many Jews who I admire and respect for their humanity and great works in science and culture. I like Jews that heal and teach, make me laugh, enjoy a good argument. I think Jewish food is basically second rate, but that could have been caused by the forced eating of knishes at Coney Island. I do not like Jews that want to kill to support their political psychosis or the political flim flam hustlers of Zionism.. I don’t hate the genetic groups of people nor do I love them. I save my passions for types of people. Those that love death and those too stupid to bother to try and understand are not my favorites. I am not afraid to say what I think or hear what others think.

Ok, fine, but you support Hamas's goal of the destruction of Israel and the death of those Jews in the middle east.

So you are fine with specific jews that fit your bill, but those jews that demand self determination in their homeland you think are worthy of execution.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that is bombing 5 million Israelis civilians. they kidnap non-combantants, they butcher and murder, but your ok with that because those babies, those kids, those teenagers are the wrong kind of jews suitable for life.

Finally, in Shabtai Tzvi, Labor Zionism and the Holocaust, which was published also by Modiin, Barry Chamish writes (on pg. 232) that, about a year before he became Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon said that had Jabotinsky been head of the Jewish Agency instead of Ben-Gurion, millions of Jews would have been saved from the Holocaust. Perfidy,

"The Transfer Agreement", and "The Scared And The Doomed" are accurate books (which were created by Jewish people, not anti-Semite bigots) that detail how Labor Zionism prevented the rescue of European Jewry.

It wasn't that long ago that Israeli officials indicated there was no point in negotiating with the PA since it did not represent all Palestinians. That of course was just one more in a long line of excuses.

How the West Chose War in Gaza

Gaza and Israel: The Road to War, Paved by the West

By NATHAN THRALLJULY 17, 2014

JERUSALEM — AS Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities and Israel follows up its extensive airstrikes with a ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian “national consensus” government that was formed in early June.

That government was created largely because of Hamas’s desperation and isolation. The group’s alliance with Syria and Iran was in shambles. Its affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt became a liability after a July 2013 coup replaced an ally, President Mohamed Morsi, with a bitter adversary, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Hamas’s coffers dried up as General Sisi closed the tunnels that had brought to Gaza the goods and tax revenues on which it depended.

Seeing a region swept by popular protests against leaders who couldn’t provide for their citizens’ basic needs, Hamas opted to give up official control of Gaza rather than risk being overthrown. Despite having won the last elections, in 2006, Hamas decided to transfer formal authority to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. That decision led to a reconciliation agreement between Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organization, on terms set almost entirely by the P.L.O. chairman and Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world.

Yet, in many ways, the reconciliation government could have served Israel’s interests. It offered Hamas’s political adversaries a foothold in Gaza; it was formed without a single Hamas member; it retained the same Ramallah-based prime minister, deputy prime ministers, finance minister and foreign minister; and, most important, it pledged to comply with the three conditions for Western aid long demanded by America and its European allies: nonviolence, adherence to past agreements and recognition of Israel.

Israel strongly opposed American recognition of the new government, however, and sought to isolate it internationally, seeing any small step toward Palestinian unity as a threat. Israel’s security establishment objects to the strengthening of West Bank-Gaza ties, lest Hamas raise its head in the West Bank. And Israelis who oppose a two-state solution understand that a unified Palestinian leadership is a prerequisite for any lasting peace.

Still, despite its opposition to the reconciliation agreement, Israel continued to transfer the tax revenues it collects on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf, and to work closely with the new government, especially on security cooperation.

But the key issues of paying Gaza’s civil servants and opening the border with Egypt were left to fester. The new government’s ostensible supporters, especially the United States and Europe, could have pushed Egypt to ease border restrictions, thereby demonstrating to Gazans that Hamas rule had been the cause of their isolation and impoverishment. But they did not.

Instead, after Hamas transferred authority to a government of pro-Western technocrats, life in Gaza became worse.

Qatar had offered to pay Gaza’s 43,000 civil servants, and America and Europe could have helped facilitate that. But Washington warned that American law prohibited any entity delivering payment to even one of those employees — many thousands of whom are not members of Hamas but all of whom are considered by American law to have received material support from a terrorist organization.

When a United Nations envoy offered to resolve this crisis by delivering the salaries through the United Nations, so as to exclude all parties from legal liability, the Obama administration did not assist. Instead, it stood by as Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, called for the envoy’s expulsion on the grounds that he was “trying to funnel money” to Hamas.

Hamas is now seeking through violence what it couldn’t obtain through a peaceful handover of responsibilities. Israel is pursuing a return to the status quo ante, when Gaza had electricity for barely eight hours a day, water was undrinkable, sewage was dumped in the sea, fuel shortages caused sanitation plants to shut down and waste sometimes floated in the streets. Patients needing medical care couldn’t reach Egyptian hospitals, and Gazans paid $3,000 bribes for a chance to exit when Egypt chose to open the border crossing.

For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza’s border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay. A more generous cease-fire, though politically difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be more durable.

The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.

From the NYT

[Nathan Thrall is a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group covering Gaza, Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. ]

I can’t take and move into 1/900th of Jenner California, displace the previous owners, build a house and tell the others that they should be grateful for what I have not taken. It is an idiotic argument.

“Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority.”

The Government of the state of Israel has declared in the clearest possible manner that the purpose of the ground incursion which began last night and continues today, is first of all to deal with the “ homicide tunnels” which the Terrorist Army Hamas, has burrowed beneath the borders of, and well into the pre 1967 territory of the state of Israel. The only people who could possibly think of this area as being “ occupied territory” are the same ones who think of Tel Aviv as “ Occupied territory” , or for that matter any square inch of land in this part of the world ,where Israel has the effrontery to declare it’s sovereignty under international law.

In other words, contrary to the perception of some, that the core reason behind this conflict is Israel’s occupation of lands conquered in the defensive war of 1967, Hamas could not, and does not, give a tinker’s damn about “ Occupied territory” . This is so because Hamas regards ANY territory on which there is a sovereignJewish state as, “ Occupied territory”.

Moreover, Hamas believes that any such Jewish state has no right to exist.

Indeed, Hamas believes it is duty bound, by both religious and political ideology, to destroy such a state, on its road to establishing the kind of Caliphate which ISIS is in the process of making a reality. According to both of their ideologies and religious beliefs, everything from the Persian Gulf to Spain, is, by virtue of once having been ruled by Moslems , “ Occupied territory”, which they mean to liberate, by any means possible.

Starting with Israel, of course.

Jews are, and seem always to have been the canaries in the mine. Europe may have thought Hitler would content himself with murdering Jews. To their sorrow they found out otherwise. Churchill referred to such thinking as the vain hope of being the last in the room to be eaten by the tiger

This brings us to the matter of the homicide tunnels. I refer to them as such, because that is exactly what they are.......

It wa Jews that engineered the greatest genocide in Europe in the 20th century. Not Germans, not Hitler, but Jews in the Soviet Union.

And us, the Jews? An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system.

An Israeli army flare illuminating the sky above the northern Gaza strip on 17 July 2014. Israel and Hamas denied reports 17 July 2014 that they had agreed to a ceasefire, following a brief lull in hostilities for humanitarian reasons and after 10 nights and days of cross-border fighting that killed 231 Palestinians and one Israeli. (Mohammed Saber/EPA)Charles KrauthammerBy Charles Krauthammer Opinion writer July 17

“Here’s the difference between us,” explains the Israeli prime minister. “We’re using missile defense to protect our civilians, and they’re using their civilians to protect their missiles.”Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays. View Archive

Rarely does international politics present a moment of such moral clarity. Yet we routinely hear this Israel-Gaza fighting described as a morally equivalent “cycle of violence.” This is absurd. What possible interest can Israel have in cross-border fighting? Everyone knows Hamas set off this mini-war. And everyone knows the proudly self-declared raison d’etre of Hamas: the eradication of Israel and its Jews.

Sodastream International (NASDAQ:SODA) last released its earnings data on Wednesday, May 14th. The company reported $0.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the analysts’ consensus estimate of $0.01 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $118.20 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $117.96 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.57 earnings per share. Sodastream International’s revenue was up .5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Sodastream International will post $1.86 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

The World is voting? Hardly, the world via Coca Cola and Keurig attempts to cash in on market place that Soda Stream invented....

BDS? LOL

SodaStream has created a product that has already been accepted by millions of consumers.SODA provides a cheap and healthy alternative to other beverages and home soda machines.Though the competition may be bigger than SODA, they do not have the experience or the business model that relates to the average consumer.SODA has nearly $500M in revenue coming from current customers this year, showing their support and value."The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort." Colin Powell.

In a world of giants and incumbents, it is rare to see a small, persecuted, and out-resourced company defy analysts, beat the odds, and thrive. The giants include the likes of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Pepsi (NYSE:PEP), and Dr Pepper Snapple (NYSE:DPS), who are entrenched into the lifestyles of billions around the world.

Matthew LevyGrowth at reasonable price, tech, long only, valueProfile| Send Message| Get real-time alerts (99 followers) Keurig Details Are Not Released: SodaStream Should Continue To Dominate The Home Soda MarketJul. 17, 2014 3:47 PM ET | About: SodaStream International (SODA), Includes: GMCR, KO, PEPDisclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)Summary

SodaStream has created a product that has already been accepted by millions of consumers.SODA provides a cheap and healthy alternative to other beverages and home soda machines.Though the competition may be bigger than SODA, they do not have the experience or the business model that relates to the average consumer.SODA has nearly $500M in revenue coming from current customers this year, showing their support and value."The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort." Colin Powell.

In a world of giants and incumbents, it is rare to see a small, persecuted, and out-resourced company defy analysts, beat the odds, and thrive. The giants include the likes of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Pepsi (NYSE:PEP), and Dr Pepper Snapple (NYSE:DPS), who are entrenched into the lifestyles of billions around the world.

The relatively small SodaStream (NASDAQ:SODA) launched its campaign to transform the soda market all the way back in the early 20th century. For awhile, it seemed as though SodaStream could be a game changer, take away share from the major beverage producers, and make billions for the company. It began to work, and then others took notice.

As I have previously written, the emergence of "home soda makers" by larger companies validates SodaStream's idea, and in fact might prove to have a positive impact on the company as a whole. It has been a bumpy journey though, and many investors have recently ditched SodaStream with a flood of negative press.

Considering the fact that the market is so overpriced at historic HIGHS? SODA is a safe and good bet for growth in stock price.

In other news? Microsoft announced plans to fire 18,000 employees in the next 12 months...

Casey Kasem's body was put on a plane and flown from Tacoma to Montreal before it mysteriously went missing after his daughter asked for an autopsy

Legendary radio host died on June 15. He had Parkinson's, dementia and sepsis, but the cause of his death is offically 'pending' His body remained at a Tacoma funeral home in Washington until July 14 The Montreal home where it was scheduled to be delivered has no record of Casey's body arriving to scheduled to arrive His widow, Jean Kasem, has rights to his body but his children want him to be buried a cemetery in Glendale, California, as he had wished It is believed the body went missing two days before a judge ordered Jean Kasem to keep the body there for an autopsy

By Martin Dryan

Published: 14:44 EST, 18 July 2014

Casey Kasem's body was flown from the funeral home in Tacoma, Washington to a funeral home in Montreal, Canada on July 14, two days before a judge ordered Casey's widow Jean Kasem to keep the body in Tacoma for an autopsy.

But mysteriously, Casey's body never arrived.

A representative for Kerri Kasem, Casey's daughter, has confirmed that her father's body is missing.

MailOnline has learned that Casey's body was put on a plane by staff at the Gaffney Funeral Home in Tacoma on July 14 and shipped to Urgel Bourgie Funeral Homes in Montreal. But staff at the Canadian funeral parlor say they have no record for any arrangements for the arrival of Kasem's body under his name, his birth name Kemal Amen Kasem or his wife Jean's name.

UnitedHealthcare, the insurance giant that largely sat out the health law’s online marketplaces’ first year, said Thursday it may sell policies through the exchanges in nearly half the states next year.

“We plan to grow next year as we expand our offering to as many as two dozen state exchanges,” Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, the insurance company’s parent, told investment analysts on a conference call. He was referring to coverage sold to individuals.

The move represents a major acceleration for the company and a bet that government-subsidized insurance, sold online without regard for pre-existing illness, is here to stay. UnitedHealthcare sells individual policies through government exchanges in only four states now.

Even analysts who follow the company closely seemed surprised.

“You’re making a really big move,” Kevin Fischbeck, an analyst for Bank of America, told the company’s executives. “You’re going to do a couple dozen states. You’ve really moved in. What’s giving you the confidence … that it’s going to be stable next year?”

The answer, the bosses said, is that the marketplaces look sustainable, even without some of the reinsurance and risk-spreading backstops put in place for carriers in the first few years. They know the prices now, they said. They know the regulations. They know how consumers are behaving.

“We felt that the markets that we’re looking at now are much more established,” said Gail Boudreaux, who runs UnitedHealth Group’s insurance division.“We’ve always felt that it was part of our strategy and plan – that this is a good, long-term market.”

Broad participation by UnitedHealthcare will increase competition and should help keep premiums down, according to theory and research. A recent paper by economists Leemore Dafny, Jonathan Gruber and Christopher Ody found that if UnitedHealthcare had sold policies through the exchanges this year in every state where it already does business, premiums would have been 5 percent lower.

Article 2 (1) of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism states:

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally...(b)...uses or damages a nuclear facility in a manner which releases or risks the release of radioactive material: (i) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or (ii) With the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment; or (iii) With the intent to compel a natural or legal person, an international organization or a State to do or refrain from doing an act.

Hardly any anti-Semites nowadays admit they hate Jews. The accepted guise for Judeophobes is to claim that they harbor no ill-will toward Jews and that they are merely anti-Zionist or oppose given Israeli policies. Yet on occasion their words and actions offer a glimpse into the sinister darkness behind the cynical politically-correct façade.

So it was last Sunday in Paris during a demonstration against Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. Some of the marchers broke off and made a beeline for two centrally located Paris synagogues.

The worst incident occurred at the Don Isaac Abravanel Synagogue on the Rue de la Roquette (in the heavily Jewish 11th arrondissement of Paris). A mob donning keffiahs, waving jihadist flags and wielding clubs (and chairs grabbed from nearby sidewalk cafes), converged on the synagogue, attempted to storm the building and attack the worshippers trapped inside. They were thwarted by police and Jewish security volunteers. Injuries were reported both among the Jewish defenders and the officers.

Many witnesses reported that the attackers chanted “death to the Jews” in French, along with the Arabic Itbach el-Yahud (slaughter the Jews). The siege on the synagogue lasted for well over an hour, during which time the congregants couldn’t extract themselves.

Sascha Reingewirtz, President of the Union of Jewish Students in France, noted in an interview with Le Parisien that the rioters blamed French Jews for the conflict in Gaza, “though they have nothing to do with it… Some people use any pretext to attack Jews and call for the death of Jews.”

Indeed this was precisely the classic modus operandi of old-school anti-Semites who felt no compulsion to pretend they were anything but Jew-haters. For them any trumped-up excuse sufficed to blame all Jews anywhere collectively and the issue of any actual culpability – individual or otherwise – never entered into it.

If all the Parisian demonstrators wanted was to “free Palestine” (without even going into the merit of their incitement on that front), what business have they to attempt to beat up Jews who are quite clearly out of Palestine? This is the touchstone of irrefutable racism.

The Sunday synagogue attacks weren’t the first instigation to violence against Jews under the cover of protesting Israel’s current campaign in Gaza.

Near a synagogue in the Belleville suburb of Paris, a demonstration Saturday featured the same hoarse shouts of “slaughter the Jews,” and “death to the Jews.” One day earlier a firebomb was hurled at another synagogue, this one at Aulnay-sous-Bois, a northeastern suburb of the French capital.

On July 8, the day Operation Protective Edge was launched, a 17-year-old Jewish girl was attacked with pepper spray on a Paris street near the Gare du Nord train station. The Middle Eastern-looking assailant yelled: “Dirty Jewess, inshallah, you shall die.”

The Paris synagogues or Paris Jews targeted cannot be held liable for Israeli actions, not that Israeli self-defense need altogether be regarded as villainous. Attacking them is every bit as racist as is wholesale rocketing of Israeli civilians; as was as was the abduction, torture and eventual murder by fire of Ilan Halimi in 2006; as was the shooting of a Jewish teacher, his two toddler sons and a small Jewish girl at the Jewish school in Toulouse two years ago; or as was the shooting at the Jewish museum in Brussels just recently.

One would think that no rational person can justify such crimes of unspeakable and unabashed hate. Yet they are whitewashed and not necessarily at the expected fascist or Muslim fringes of the arena. Most worrisome is the free pass given such violence by seemingly ultra-liberal sorts. Thus, for example, French Ecologist Party activist Pierre Minnaert opined that “when synagogues start acting like embassies, one cannot be surprised to see them attacked in the same way.”

The shame of it is that this might not be an entirely out-of-favor viewpoint. It will lurk behind official denunciations of anti-Semitism and it will thrive as long as the world refuses to recognize the Arab war against Israel as often being a war against all Jews wherever they are.

This blog, Deuce, which represents YOU. Allows not just for the trashing of Israel and "Zionism", but permits constant trashing of Jews and Judaism. From rat's hate filled rants about "Talmud" to posts that are directly lifted from holocaust denier websites it aint just about "israel"

Anti-Zionism has become the most dangerous and effective form of anti- Semitism in our time, through its systematic delegitimization, defamation, and demonization of Israel. Although not a priori anti-Semitic, the calls to dismantle the Jewish state, whether they come from Muslims, the Left, or the radical Right, increasingly rely on an anti-Semitic stereotypization of classic themes, such as the manipulative "Jewish lobby," the Jewish/Zionist "world conspiracy," and Jewish/Israeli "warmongers." One major driving force of this anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism is the transformation of the Palestinian cause into a "holy war"; another source is anti-Americanism linked with fundamentalist Islamism. In the current context, classic conspiracy theories, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, are enjoying a spectacular revival. The common denominator of the new anti-Zionism has been the systematic effort to criminalize Israeli and Jewish behavior, so as to place it beyond the pale of civilized and acceptable conduct.

The question of whether anti-Zionism can or should be equated with anti-Semitism is one of those pivotal issues that refuse to go away. It is of considerable importance in any effort to define the nature of the "new Judeophobia" and strategies to deal with it. Recently when I addressed British MPs in the House of Commons, this was the first order of business. Surely, they wanted to know, doubts about Zionism or alarm at Israel's policies must be distinguished from loathing toward Jews? Was it not true that anti-Semitism was frequently confused with "anti-Sharonism," as The Guardian likes to claim? Did not Jews themselves often engage in the fiercest opposition to Israeli government policy without being accused of anti-Semitism? Finally, exaggerated use of the Judeophobic charge, it was suggested, might raise the suspicion that Israel's leaders were seeking to deflect or even silence justified criticism.

My answer to such objections is that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two distinct ideologies that over time (especially since 1948) have tended to converge, generally without undergoing a full merger. There have always been Bundists, Jewish communists, Reform Jews, and ultra-Orthodox Jews who strongly opposed Zionism without being Judeophobes. So, too, there are conservatives, liberals, and leftists in the West today who are pro-Palestinian, antagonistic toward Israel, and deeply distrustful of Zionism without crossing the line into anti- Semitism. There are also Israeli "post-Zionists" who object to the definition of Israel as an exclusively or even a predominantly "Jewish" state without feeling hostile toward Jews as such. There are others, too, who question whether Jews are really a nation; or who reject Zionism because they believe its accomplishment inevitably resulted in uprooting many Palestinians. None of these positions is intrinsically anti-Semitic in the sense of expressing opposition or hatred toward Jews as Jews.

Nevertheless, I believe that the more radical forms of anti-Zionism that have emerged with renewed force in recent years do display unmistakable analogies to European anti-Semitism immediately preceding the Holocaust. One of the more striking symptoms has been the call for a scientific, cultural, and economic boycott of Israel that arouses some grim associations and memories among Jews of the Nazi boycott that began in 1933. (Indeed, such actions go back at least fifty years earlier when anti-Semitic organizations first used economic boycotts as a weapon against Jewish competitors.) There are other highly visible manifestations. An example is the systematic manner in which Israel is harassed at international forums such as the United Nations, where the Arab states have for decades pursued a policy of isolating the Jewish state and turning it into a pariah. An offshoot of this campaign was the hate-fest at the UN-sponsored Durban Conference against racism of September 2001, which denounced Zionism as a "genocidal" movement, practicing "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians. In these and similar public forums, as well as in much of the Western mainstream media, Zionism and the Jewish people have been demonized in ways that are virtually identical to the methods, arguments, and techniques of racist anti-Semitism. Even though the current banner may be "antiracist" and the defamation is being carried out today in the name of human rights, all the red lines have clearly been crossed. For example, "anti-Zionists" who insist on comparing Zionism and the Jews with Hitler and the Third Reich appear unmistakably to be de facto anti-Semites, even if they vehemently deny the fact! This is largely because they knowingly exploit the reality that Nazism in the postwar world has become the defining metaphor of absolute evil. For if Zionists are "Nazis" and if Sharon really is Hitler, then it becomes a moral obligation to wage war against Israel. That is the bottom line of much contemporary anti-Zionism. In practice, this has become the most potent form of contemporary anti-Semitism.

Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, has just announced that "anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." May he live long and prosper.

In 2002, I wrote that "Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism," as is the age-old Muslim view of Jews which, I pointed out, has joined forces with the western intelligentsia to create a "perfect storm" of slander against Judaism and the Jewish state.

My editor challenged me very hard on whether anti-Zionism was, indeed, anti-Semitic at all. I was adamant and the analysis remained in my book, "The New Anti-Semitism," which was published half-way through 2003. But my editor disapproved and remained aloof, nervous. (Well, he lived in Berkeley and what I had written was very "politically incorrect.")

When the book came out, most of the liberal media did not review it. The few venues that did, challenged my statistics and my analysis. I was attacked on CNN--but more than held my own. Afterwards, a cameraman came from behind his camera to shake my hand.

Nevertheless, in certain Jewish circles, I was scorned as "alarmist" and "hysterical" and as "the Jewish Cassandra."

Said I: "Oh Sir, Cassandra was not heeded and her city was burned to the ground and she became Agamemnon's sex slave. I do not wish to be Cassandra nor should you even think such a thing."

The man who said this was a co-panelist at a poorly attended conference at Columbia University.

The conservative media, both Jewish and Christian, reviewed this work respectfully. I became persona non grata in all the familiar places, but I found new allies.

Later in 2003, another book about anti-Semitism, penned by Mr. Anti Anti-Semitism himself, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, said no such thing. Foxman was still looking over his shoulder afraid that Christian or pagan Nazis were stalking him. His book also entirely missed the history of 14 centuries of Islamic religious apartheid, an attitude and a practice which resulted in persecuting, forcibly converting, and exterminating Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Ba'hai, and Christians.

It took a full decade before the leaders of various American Jewish Organizations began to publicly say what I and a handful of others had said, written, and lectured about.

I must ask: Why are Jews in organizations so reluctant to see they are in danger? Is it because they do not want to alarm their flock? But what if alarm is called for?

Is it because they do not identify with Jewish destiny, in fact, wish to be free of it?

Why are so many good Jews willing to sacrifice their own survival and the survival of their people on the altar of the beliefs I once cherished (and still do, but with great care); the belief that all cultures and all religions are equal and equally worthy; that all people are, at heart, "the same."

I do not believe that the Jewish mother and father who sacrifice themselves for their children are the same as the mother or father who sell their daughters into slavery; who indoctrinate their sons into becoming suicide bombers; who blow themselves up in order to blow up other people's children. This happens among Muslims-only (think Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan); and it happens in countless incidents of Muslim-on-infidel violence.

I hope that organized American Jewry--and Israeli intelligence--fully understand that we have just lost this round of battles in the War of Ideas and that in order to win it, we will have to get the truth out there and, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, keep it out there, long before the Big Lie has a chance to put on its pants.

I took my book out of print in order to write a new Introduction. Since 2003, there has been a flurry of very important books on this subject.

I wonder who is reading such books? Is it mainly the authors of other such books? Is it Jewish professionals or scholars? Are regular people, of all or of no religion, reading such tomes? I would really like to know.

An unaccompanied child migrant was the first person in line on opening day of the new immigration station at Ellis Island. Her name was Annie Moore, and that day, January 1, 1892, happened to be her 15th birthday. She had traveled with her two little brothers from Cork County, Ireland, and when they walked off the gangplank, she was awarded a certificate and a $10 gold coin for being the first to register. Today, a statue of Annie stands on the island, a testament to the courage of millions of children who passed through those same doors, often traveling without an older family member to help them along.

Of course, not everyone was lining up to give Annie and her fellow passengers a warm welcome. Alarmists painted immigrants—children included—as disease-ridden job stealers bent on destroying the American way of life. And they're still at it. On a CNN segment about the current crisis of child migrants from Central and South America, Michele Bachmann used the word "invaders" and warned of rape and other dangers posed to Americans by the influx. And last week, National Review scoffed at appeals to American ideals of compassion and charity, claiming Ellis Island officials had a . . . . .

Sheba Medical Center geneticists have found that a population of Indians in the U.S. state of Colorado has genetic Jewish roots going back to the expulsion of Jews from Spain.

The common marker was a unique genetic mutation on the BRCA1 gene. This mutation, commonly known as the "Ashkenazi mutation," is found in Jews of Ashkenazi origin and is associated with an increased risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

The trail began with research conducted by Prof. Jeffrey Weitzel, an oncogenetic (cancer genetics) expert at the City of Hope Hospital in California. Weitzel examined samples from 110 American families of Hispanic origin, and followed them through a computational genetics study, and in 2005 published an article pointing to their common ancestry: People who had immigrated to the United States from Mexico and South America.

Weitzel's discovery of the BRCA1 mutation in these Hispanics led him to suspect that there was a genetic connection between them and European Jews, and he sought to confirm the connection.

A study recently conducted at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer whose findings have been accepted for publication by the European Journal of Human Genetics has found the missing link: The mutation was also found in a group of Mexican Indians who had immigrated from Mexico to the United States over the past 200 years and settled in western Colorado.

When their samples were submitted to a computational genetic study, it emerged that they, along with Weitzel's original Hispanic subjects, all had a common ancestor: A Jew who immigrated from Europe to South America up to 600 years ago, the period in which Christopher Columbus discovered America and the Jews of Spain were expelled.

The Sheba research was performed by a team headed by Prof. Eitan Friedman, head of the medical center's Oncogenetics Unit, and student Yael Leitman, and sought to identify the original source of the BRCA1 mutation, found in about 1.5 percent of Jews of Ashkenazi origin and 0.5 percent of Iraqi Jews.

To do this, they collected samples from 115 families carrying this mutation from all over the world. These included Jewish families of Ashkenazi and Iraqi origin, and Jews originating from the Indian city of Cochin. They also, with Weitzel's help, collected samples from 16 mutation-carrying families among the Mexican Indians in Colorado, five British families from Manchester, and three families from Malaysia.

The study was based on previous Sheba research from 15 years ago, during which primitive analyses were done on the mutation found in Ashkenazi and Iraqi Jews; at that time, it was thought the mutation had first occurred 2,500 years earlier, during the dispersion after the destruction of the First Temple.

However, the new analysis, which checked 15 different genetic markers associated with the mutation, demonstrated that the Iraqi version of the mutated gene traces back only 450 years, which testifies to a migration of Ashkenazi Jews to Iraq - most probably merchants - that has not been well documented.

Meanwhile, the mutation found in the Colorado Indians was found to be identical to that of Ashkenazi Jews, and dates to a period more than 600 years ago. Researchers say this offers incontrovertible genetic proof that some of the Jews expelled from Spain who reached the New World intermarried with local Indians whose descendants later migrated to the United States.

The mutation identified in the British and Malaysian families, on the other hand, does not come from the same source as the Ashkenazi mutation, indicating that the mutation developed in other communities in parallel.

According to Friedman, the Mexican-Indians of Colorado, who are concentrated in the Mesa Verde area, have never demonstrated any adherence to Jewish customs, nor do they possess any oral traditions that might link them to Jews.

Ellis Island officials made several efforts to care for children detained on the island—those with parents and those without—who could be there for weeks at a time. Around 1900 a playground was constructed there with a sandbox, swings, and slides. A group of about a dozen women known as "matrons" played games and sang songs with the children, many of whom they couldn't easily communicate with due to language barriers. Later, a school room was created for them, and the Red Cross supplied a radio for the children to listen to.

And of course, many of those kids grew up to work tough jobs, start new businesses and create new jobs, and pass significant amounts of wealth down to some of the very folks clamoring to "send 'em back" today.

Other children journeyed to Ellis Island alone because they had lost their parents, often to war or famine, and had been sponsored by immigrant aid societies and other charities in America. The picture above shows eight Jewish children whose mothers had been killed in a Russian pogrom in 1905.

The Immigration Act of 1907 did indeed declare that unaccompanied children under 16 were not permitted to enter in the normal fashion. But it didn't send them packing, either. Instead, the act set up a system in which unaccompanied children—many of whom were orphans—were kept in detention awaiting a special inquiry with immigration inspectors to determine their fate. At these hearings . . . . . .

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.